I just came across this blog and ended up reading some of the comments with Gerards replies. I think nothing much has changed since last year. We still have this terrible dilemma.
This drawing of Gaby is from 2011 and was done by JohnNott in the Parramatta Mall in front of the Town Hall. Gaby gave us this copy of the original. When we cleaned up Gaby’s house, we could not find the original any more.
Gaby died on the 15th of July 2012. This is going to be two years ago tomorrow. I copied here a post I published two years ago as a celebration of her life. The pictures show a lot of her carers, friends and family. We all remember you, Gaby.
Give thanks to the
Lord, call on his
name; make known
among the nations
what he has done.
Sing to him, sing
praise to him; tell of
all his wonderful acts.
Psalm 105; 1-2
The 18th of April 1999 was the day when we travelled by Ferry Boat from Parramatta to Sydney (Circular Quay). Peter’s sister Ilse was with us She was still sad, because her husband, Klaus, had died the previous year. However, she liked to stay with us for a while. After a two months visit she went back to Berlin with the promise to visit us again.
The 18th of April 1998 happened to be the birthday of Klaus, his last one before he died. So on the Ferry on that day a year later Ilse could not help but thinking that it was the anniversary of the birthday of Klaus and how he would have loved this Ferry trip too.
Gaby and David were with us on that boat. David went straight away to the front deck after boarding and stayed outside for the whole trip. Ilse and I stayed inside with Gaby who was in her wheelchair, of course. Peter went backwards and forwards all the time taking pictures.
In March 1999, soon after Ilse had arrived from Germany, we went with her to visit Gaby at her place in Merrylands West. This is where she met David too for the first time.
For you and Mama. Reminds me of the day we were wandering throughout the botanical gardens with Matthew and decided “to go in search of gelato”
“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration; I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”
Peter chose this piece two years ago, on the 28th of August!, to remember Gaby by. Peter wrote then that he thinks this is how Gaby felt about her life. I tend to agree with him about this.
Gaby came down with poliomyelitis on her fourth birthday. That was in 1961. When she was 32, in 1989, she left institutional care and moved into her own home in Merrylands West, a Western suburb of Sydney. David (Dave) became her full time carer. But as a quadriplegic with breathing difficulties who needed to sleep in an iron lung, she needed several people to come in on a daily basis to look after her diverse needs.
Anyhow, Gaby was happy to leave the home for disabled people and move into her own home. 40 year old David did for nearly twenty years a marvellous job in doing whatever he could for Gaby. But in the end his health deteriorated more and more. It became impossible for him to the the things for Gaby he would normally have to do as her carer. It was a rather sad situation. Gaby knew that David needed help but she did not know how to provide this for him.
Gaby and David both loved animals. Soon after moving in Gaby acquired a companion dog provided by the people who train dogs for blind people. Dave liked that dog too. They called her Bonnie. A cat named Clyde became Bonnie’s companion. Gaby just adored her animals. They were like her children. She always saw to it that they had everything they needed.
I happen to have still a Christmas card from Gaby and Dave with a calendar for 1998 in it. The card came with a book: A Tolstoy biography by A.N. Wilson, first published in Great Britain in 1988. This is a great reference book and a great read. Gaby chose this book for me as a Christmas gift. She did choose very well. She always took great care to choose gifts for all the family for birthdays and for Christmas. Of course her funds were limited. So she always looked for bargains. Quite often her choices were astoundingly good.
Sadly Gaby lost Bonnie. She was lucky that after some time she was given a replacement dog which she called ‘Honey’. Honey was quite skinny at first but soon filled out a bit.
Gaby on her 27th birthday at Ferguson Lodge with Caroline and friend Coral as well as the twins Troy and Ryan.
I am a first born one, and as someone with two younger brothers I probably always tended to be bossy. Peter, my husband of more than 57 years, is a third born one. He claims his two older sisters used to boss him around. He always lets me know in no uncertain terms that he very much resents being bossed around by me. I have to be very careful in what I am saying to him; it can often be interpreted as an ‘order’ even if it is meant as a suggestion only. I have the feeling Peter always fears that I want to act as though I can make all the decisions. I think he feels immediately like a little boy who can be bossed around the way his sisters used to do it.
So I always want to try my utmost to sound like a person who is not bossy in the least. However no matter how hard I try, more often than not I come across to Peter as wanting to be bossy! It used to distress me a lot when I was younger. With advancing age these relationship difficulties don’t seem to be the end of the world anymore. I think old age teaches us to try to be more tolerant and accepting. And of course for as long as there is love in the relationship any frustration can be overcome!
AuntyUta 
July 22, 2013 at 5:08 am | Why? Is it because we feel our way of life being threatened?
Do we not spend billions to ‘protect’ our borders? What if this money or at least part of it could be spent to provide some simple housing for asylum seekers. What if we let these people work to build houses, infrastructure and to produce nourishing food, as well as build schools and do training of teachers for children as well as adults to learn English? Does anyone think these people are not capable of doing a day’s work? Why let them rot in camps without being able to work? It doesn’t make sense to me.
There are many jobs in Australia that are nearly exclusively done by recent migrants from Asia and Africa. They are willingly and gladly doing these jobs for little pay which other Australians are not willing to do anymore!
How much do people pay these so called people smugglers? Why don’t we go to Indonesia and tell these people instead of giving this money to people smugglers they can deposit it with an Australian Bank. Then they only have to apply for residence in Australia and in due time the Australian government is going to transport them to this country of their choice at no cost to them? If the application is not successful for some reason (maybe because they cannot provide sufficient papers?) then they can withdraw their saved money at any time. At least the the people smugglers would not get the money and these people would not risk being drowned at sea or their application not being successful after a hazardous journey. When Peter and I applied for migration to Australia from Germany in 1959 we were asked to come for an interview to the Australian embassy in Cologne. We had to bring our two babies along too when we talked to the Australian officer.
Why cannot the same thing be done with prospective migrants in Indonesia?
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July 22, 2013 at 6:32 am | Of course many could be settled here very comfortably. The political parties just use the boat people for political ends, whipping up xenophobia.
Anyway, it seems the liberals have been snookered by the ALP in their own game. I think your idea to advice people to invest the money going to smugglers into an Australian Bank instead an excellent idea. It take an (ex) German to come up with practical workable solutions! 🙂
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July 22, 2013 at 7:12 amHe, he, Gerard, this remains to be seen if anything like this would meet any government’s criteria!
I just read what barrister and human rights advocate Julian Burnside has to say. He says boat arrivals are less than 0,7% of all yearly arrivals. To keep one person in detention for one year costs 200,000 $ in our cities and more then twice this in outback centres or off shore places. (I reckon Papua New Guinea might be a lot cheaper!)
Burnside says after one month for security and health checks asylum seekers should be released into the community allowing them to work or to receive Centrelink benefits, settling them in regional centres who would gladly welcome the influx of people to these reginal towns who struggle to survive.
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July 22, 2013 at 7:22 am | Yes, that would be common sense. But common sense seems to be in short supply. The difficulty seems to be to turn around peoples perception that the boat people numbers are not large, they are miniscule. It is not a real problem for such a country of ‘boundless plains’.
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July 22, 2013 at 6:09 am | Can’t believe the white Australia policy is still going on. Amazing. I remember it from years back when my uncle was a ten pound pom and my partner and some of his mates from South Wales went in the late 70s. Then, to be fair, it did change and Redfern became full of Vietnamese.It’s one of the ironies of life that big countries are invariably underpopulated and small ones overpopulated. A generalisation, but living in the fifth most densely populated territory in the world, one that applies to me. If you look at Europe, Belgium, Netherlands, and to a lesser extent, the UK, are all relatively high up the list. Spain less so, like Australia, it has vast areas of country that have no people.
When you start to look at bigger countries with a high population density, Bangla Desh comes first, followed by India, and then China. Bangla Desh isn’t that big, just the biggest that hits six figures in sq kms in the top 20. India makes top 50, and China is 83 in the rankings. The rest of the big countries are way down the list.
Having said all that PNG is pretty low on the list 209, compared with Australia at 233.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density.
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July 22, 2013 at 6:40 am | The original White Australian Policy was abandoned officially in the seventies. The population now is very mixed and from just about all over the world, that’s why it is so ludicrous to be so worried about boat people in desperation trying to come here. We should be worried about their drowning but this is not the main concern which is a way over the top whipping up of xenophobia, being overrun by hordes of Afghans or Iranians, etc.
We went to those countries waging dubious wars that made millions of refugees. When some in desperation try and come to Australia risking their lives, we make out as if they have evil intentions for Australia
. Terrible.
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July 22, 2013 at 11:21 amI should have added that every year there is an influx of raft people from Africa trying to get to Spain and thence to northern Europe for a better life. Or just anywhere really.What so-called developed countries (ie greedy capitalist ones) should do, is put some reasonable infrastructure in instead of going to war for oil, leaving the place a dog’s breakfast, and consider more environmental moves. In my dreams.
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July 22, 2013 at 6:47 am | Gerard, you are painting a good picture of the history of post-war immigration into Australia and the present sad state of affairs.Even the language they are using explaining the new measurements are offensive, like “this country has enough”. What about PNG? They soon will have enough of the asylum seekers.
The “boat people” will get a culture shock. Perhaps this is intended. You are right, it can’t be the number of people that come. There is plenty of land that can be populated.
You say, Australia is a huge country and “small” parts of it are as big as European countries. The problem with Australians is they have no idea how huge Australia is. When they go to school and they see a map of Australia the map is the same size as the map of any other country. Since we have no neighbours here we have no way comparing our country with another.
The numbers in boat arrivals are minuscule. If we are worried about the drowning, as they say, they should go to Indonesia and pick the recognised refugees up and bring them here. I wrote to PM Gillard but got no response.
When we came to Australia they came and picked us up (assisted migrants) and we were economic migrants. We all want a better life, what is wrong with that? Didn’t the Angle-Saxon go to Britain for a better life?
Contracting out the asylum seekers is cheaper. To hell with the consequences for them and the people of PNG. The shock of the new measure “might” do the trick and it will reduce the boat arrivals.
And you asked, why? Because we stole the country in the first place and we don’t want to share it with others. The population has increased despite ourselves. We are racist, but we will not admit it.
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July 22, 2013 at 8:23 am | Yes Berlioz 1935.
Back in those days the Australian Government were advertising overseas to try and entice people to migrate. Now many are coming out of a much greater need. The need to survive and escape terrible wars.
I can’t believe some of the dreadful comments in the media. Many boat people have drowned and are still drowning and it is made out as if this is some ploy by them to gain a better outcome or more sympathy.